


of stars and dissonance

by nfra3711



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Awkward Crush, Blogging, Childhood, First Meetings, M/M, Scars, Tumblr Prompt, mentions of Pokémon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-14 12:49:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7172456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nfra3711/pseuds/nfra3711
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>30 Day OTP Challenge featuring Kenya/Zaizen (Naniwa Pair).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting Lost Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> Figured it was time I gave my other Tennis OTP aside from ShiraYuki some love! This was written to be a part of Mizu's 30 Day OTP Challenge on Tumblr. I'm not sure how many of these I'll end up doing and length and quality may vary greatly but I'll definitely try! Enjoy!

A lot of times Zaizen would find himself taken back to a certain moment in the past- one that he wasn’t extremely fond of. But then again, he was six.

He could never quite explain why his subconscious clung so hard to that very specific memory. He could take a couple of guesses, he supposed, but he reckoned he shouldn’t as he’d probably end up disgusting himself.

\--

It was around eleven on a bright Saturday morning (and as to how he managed to remember that while he probably couldn’t figure what he was doing last weekend without the assistance of his cluttery mess of a blog was simply beyond him). The new Pokémon game had just came out the week before and the six year old Zaizen had particularly booked the entire Saturday to set off on his mission to be the best like no one ever was. Unfortunately, his mother, as dear and beloved as she was, decided that her son’s journey of youth and self-discovery could wait another day, as she practically dragged him out of the house the first thing before Zaizen could even take one step away from the dining table following breakfast.

He pouted and whined and grumbled, but it only made her mother’s grip on his hand tighter and her focus unwavering from her destination.

“Your cousin’s wedding is next Wednesday and you still don’t have anything to wear.”

Zaizen couldn’t care less about weddings (something that wouldn’t change, even years after), they were always crowded with people he didn’t know and crazy noisy with music he didn’t like and the worst part was the food wasn’t even that good. Yet his mother and father and aunts and uncles and quite literally everyone he knew were always so excited every time someone brought them up, and he didn’t understand why. His friends from school said it was because weddings were a kind of holy ceremony where people who were in love hugged and kissed and stuff. Zaizen had seen what kisses were like, and they were _gross_.

He found that department stores weren’t far better. They were always packed with people and it was always unbearably humid in there and it was exactly where his mother was taking him.

It wasn’t his first time in the boutique. He’d long found out that he was unfortunately related to people who took joy in playing dress up- but Zaizen didn’t like dressing up, it was stupid and icky and he was six years old for God’s sake. His mother talked to the owner; a lady of age with a few strands of graying hair and glasses that were probably three decades old. The owner would throw one or two glances at him, a creepily thin smile sat across her face and Zaizen would muster the biggest, most obnoxious ‘ _get me out of this place_ ’ expression, which either she had somehow missed, or completely ignored.

They were talking, and talking, and he didn’t notice when the conversation had shifted from getting him an overpriced set of clothes to what Mrs. Yamada had said about Mrs. Inoue or how Mrs. Tanaka’s oldest son was arrested for eating his speeding ticket while high, whatever that meant.

He shifted in his place, then grunted and patted his foot impatiently, all ending in failure on getting his mother’s attention. He looked around the spacious shop for probably the umpteenth time, and there was still nothing that could keep him entertained for more than two seconds, with there being only dresses and fabric and lace and frills no matter where his sight gazed.

Then, for a mere split of seconds, it caught his eyes.

There was another shop, outside, upstairs, and what differentiated it from what seemed to be countless of rows of boring displays of pricey items was that this one had a poster stuck on its window- and not just any poster- a poster of the new Pokémon game of which his copy was left sitting above the desk in his room, abandoned.

Surely, if his mother had the heart to deny her son of the worldly pleasures of pixelated adventures and then proceeded to bore the brain out of his skull by continuously talking about Mrs. Tanaka- or was it Mrs. Matsumoto now? He could make a quick trip upstairs and come back right where he was without her noticing?

Right. The store was right there. All he needed to do was to take the stairs and turn left. Simple. Even a toddler could do that.

He watched his mother carefully; she was still talking, and the owner behind the counter now had a photo album open, pointing at a few pictures in it before making the ugliest laugh Zaizen had ever heard.

_Go up. Turn left. Return. Easy._

He snuck out of the dreaded boutique and dashed right towards the escalator. It was almost bizarre how thrilled it made him feel, and he was sure that he had never ran that fast before- not even during the school race. He felt free and confident and he wholeheartedly welcomed the tiny streak of rebel that was pumping all over his body. Perhaps he should do that more often.

He reached the upper floor and did exactly as he had rehearsed; he turned left and it didn’t take him half a minute more of dashing before he found himself standing right before the poster- colors vibrant and size bigger than his size times two. There were sparkles in his eyes, and pride gushing controllably out of his heart. Screw his mother and the old owner and their gazillions of suits and bowties. _This_ was where he belonged.

He shifted his eyes right and left, and saw through the shop windows. The store was packed with adults and children alike, handling boxes of newly arrived games. He leered towards the entrance, and there was one shopkeeper standing right behind it. Zaizen pondered it would cause him no harm if he spent an extra five minutes to look through the gaming aisles- that was what people went to shops for, wasn’t it?

With another rebellious streak pulsing through him, he set foot to approach the tall glass door-

“ You like Pokémon too?!”

He stopped. The voice behind him was way too loud and cheery to his liking.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Feeling someone grabbing his shoulder, Zaizen could feel himself tensing up with alarm and immediately swatted the offending hand in reflex. His mother always warned him about strangers, he had to run back to her now-

“Ouch! What was that for?!”

But the now complaining voice didn’t sound anything like a thief’s, or a kidnapper’s or a monster’s. At least, that was what Zaizen thought. He still held his mother’s words close to his heart, but she’d raised him better than to run off without an apology after practically slapping someone he had just met.

“I’m sorry…”

It came out meeker than he’d hoped, but he supposed it’d suffice.

“That was harsh…”

Standing before him was a boy, roughly his age, if he could hazard a guess. His jet black hair was messier than Zaizen’s dad’s on a weekend morning, the tank top he was wearing was a horribly bright shade of red and there was a huge star plastered right in the middle of it. The other boy had too many band aids surrounding his elbows and knees, and a few more on his face, and it scared Zaizen if not a tiny bit- what on Earth did this boy go through?!

“I just thought your shirt was cool.”

Zaizen hadn’t really noticed what he was wearing when he left home that morning. Out of the stream of whining and grumbling he just sort of put on whatever his nagging mother gave him to wear. Now that he actually paid attention to it, he probably didn’t look half less embarrassing than the band aid boy, sporting a bright yellow T-Shirt with a picture of Pikachu chilling on one bottom corner. It was a gift from a doting uncle, and wasn’t exactly what he’d choose for himself.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“Why do you keep looking down?”

“My mom tells me not to talk to strangers.”

“Kay, but whose mom doesn’t?”

He was about to shoot back with a complain before the other boy grabbed his hands, an annoyingly wide grin spreading across his face.

“My name’s Kenya! What’s yours?”

“Doesn’t this count as talking to strangers?”

“You know my name now so I’m not a stranger!”

Zaizen knew a couple of ‘those’ kind of kids; the noisy and irritating kind that wouldn’t shut their big mouths up unless they were given what they wanted. Definitely not Zaizen’s favorite kind of people to hang out with, but when the idiot with the idiotic face had his sweaty hands grabbing his like they were a pair of stress balls, he probably had no choice.

“…Hikaru.”

Kenya released his hands and his grin grew wider (Zaizen didn’t even think it could), but then proceeded to drape his arm around Zaizen’s neck and dragged him back in front of the shop window. Zaizen grunted his denouncement, but it unfortunately fell upon deaf ears.

“The new game looks really cool, huh? Wish I could play it already!”

“You could just buy it.”

Kenya laughed. “I wish! See, we only have one Game Boy lying around and we gotta share! Me, my bro and my dumb cousin! Can you believe that?!”

He couldn’t believe that. He couldn’t even begin to imagine having to share his gaming time with someone, let alone have someone go even as far as touching his Game Boy! He almost felt sorry for Kenya.

“My dad bought it for me. I haven’t played it though, my mom wanted me to go shopping with her.”

“Ew, shopping!”

Zaizen could almost feel a smile tugging at his lips. “I know, right?”

“Well I won’t give up until I get one! Everyone at school’s talking about it and I’m SOOO jealous!”

Zaizen couldn’t help but wonder if sharing one console meant the other boy would have to share the game with his brother and cousin too- and it almost brought him to tell Kenya out of pity that the game actually had only a single saving slot- but perhaps it was a hell Kenya had to discover on his own.

“I think I should go before my mom realizes I’m gone.”

“What, you ran away from shopping?” The amused look on Kenya’s face was closer to respect  and admiration now. “That’s so cool! You know where she is now?”

“Yeah, she’s in that boutique downstairs.”

Kenya skipped airily towards the rail fencing, hopped on his toes and leaned forward to look along the floor below them.

“I don’t see any boutique.”

“It’s the one on the right.”

“That’s the pizza place, Hikaru.”

It didn’t take Zaizen three seconds to be on his toes against the railing as well- cold sweat starting to form on his temples when he realized that it was, indeed, the pizza place and not the boutique.

He frantically looked left then right, agitatedly hoping that he had somehow forgotten a step or two in his flawless calculation; but he couldn’t have when there were only three steps to begin with!

“Hikaru.” Kenya’s voice was less excited and more piteous now. “Are you sure you know where your mom is?”

It was the first time since he started elementary school that Zaizen Hikaru cried.

\--


	2. Pet Names

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zaizen's vague-blogging is driving Kenya insane.

Blogging was always an essential part of Zaizen’s life. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration that reading through his many disastrous shit-posts and dangerously callous replies to anonymous messages was the best way to get to know him- or at least, it would make for an icebreaker session that he wouldn’t ignore- for the most part. Kenya, having practically been his closest friend since the beginning of middle school, would might as well be a walking archive of Zaizen’s blog. From the beginning of their friendship to the present day, Kenya had bought a new phone twice- and on each time without fail, setting an alarm for Zaizen’s blog updates was the first thing he did- even way before importing his contacts and files.

He’d learned that his underclassman’s blog wasn’t that different from his personal Facebook and Twitter accounts; the stuff that were posted there were technically identical- with the exception that ‘Captain Shiraishi’ was ‘Captain air freshener’ on his blog. Hitouji was ‘Kappa,’ Seigaku’s Kaidoh was ‘Mr. Fluffy,’ and Rikkai’s Kirihara was ‘Hellspawn.’ It took quite a bit of work to figure out who was who at first, but Kenya admitted that there was some strange humor in reading lines such as “Today Mr. Fluffy woke up at 4am because he wanted to do some bench press,” or “Our resident Mushroom insisted we watch some stupid sci-fi flick and it was as dumb as his hair.”

While it was all fun and games, Kenya wondered why he was specifically excluded from the treatment. It was pretty easy to spot when Zaizen was talking about his doubles partner in his posts, but he’d always refer to Kenya as ‘that other senior’ or occasionally, ‘the idiot.’ Kenya knew that getting worked up over something so trivial would just further prove that he was indeed the idiot, and asking the blogger himself would’ve just earned him a cocky smirk, but he couldn’t help his raging curiosity, even if it wasn’t to be graced by an answer until the day he graduated middle school.

Starting high school life, he had only a few chances to see Zaizen, with the latter always seemed to be busy with tennis club business and high school entry exam preparations. Their texts got shorter and shorter and Kenya couldn’t fully relate to Zaizen’s tweets any longer. Sure, he was glad to see that the haughty, sometimes coarse younger boy moved along just fine after the departure of his tennis club seniors, but while Kenya’s head went with logic, his heart didn’t; he missed Zaizen, and he felt empty.

It was a weekend night when the screen of Kenya’s phone turned alight. Kenya initially paid no mind to it as the TV had his full attention; blaring the brand new online multiplayer game he’d finally saved up enough for. But the alarm sound coming from the phone reminded him that it was not just a missed call or some LINE message he could always read later. Zaizen’s blog updated.

He put the controller down and he could feel his heart going pitter-pattery as he grabbed his phone, something he found ridiculous as he shouldn’t be feeling so jittery and nervous and _happy_ to be reading what he knew would be yet another variation of a meme he’d seen at least two hundred times the past week. But where should be a low-res picture of a certain character from a certain American cartoon or a stupid picture of a frog in a unicycle, there was text that was no longer than a line.

‘I miss _Star_. It’s dumb and pretty pathetic, but I miss them.’

Kenya could feel his vanity soaring rapidly upon reading the sentence- there was only one person Zaizen knew that deserved a nickname like ‘Star,’ wasn’t there? It couldn’t be anyone else.

Or so Kenya thought, as his thumb hovered over the tiny heart on his phone screen. But somehow, for some reason, he stopped.

He replayed the past few months in his head. The last time he met Zaizen face-to-face was two months ago, and they hadn’t seen each other more than six times since Kenya started high school. Their last text messages with one another were anything but close and personal, with the middle schooler asking the older boy where he’d recommend to find new tennis shoes.

‘Star’ should, must have been Kenya, and yet there was all the chance in the world it was someone else. He hadn’t met, talked to Zaizen in a while and for all he knew, he could still be ‘ _the idiot_ ’ all the while Zaizen was smitten by some random douche.

Now he felt pathetic.

\--

A few more months had passed and summer break finally arrived. Shiraishi had brought up the idea of gathering their middle school tennis club members together for a summer getaway and the response was nothing short of positive so far. Of course Shiraishi -the bastard that he secretly was- assigned Kenya the job to convince Zaizen to join them (never tell Shiraishi about your stupid little crush, Kenya noted). The Speedstar of Naniwa wasn’t known for mental rehearsals or neatly-written scripts, especially when it was only for one goddamn phone call, but there he was, jotting messy notes on his arm with a pen and fidgeting, all the while Shiraishi shook his head and chuckled (God, why couldn’t he just go away?!)

Usually, Zaizen would delay picking up his phone when he knew it was Kenya calling, just because he knew how Kenya hated waiting and hearing the dial tone for any longer than four seconds _pissed_ him off. But this time, he answered almost immediately and Kenya could only pray he didn’t hear the outrageous yelp he just made over the phone.

“What the hell was that?”

“Shiraishi poked me in the neck.” It came out almost naturally.

“He’s lying!” Shiraishi shouted from the back of the room.

Kenya could hear Zaizen sighing, and he nervously glanced back at the scribbles all over his left arm to remind himself of what he was going to say.

“So, it’s summer.”

“I noticed.”

“Are you like, busy, or something?”

There was a moment of silence, as if Zaizen was taking his time to come up with a snarky response that served no purpose but to point out how stupid that sounded.

“Kay! Straight to the point! Got it!” Kenya half-yelled at the phone, giving Zaizen no time for his cynicism. “Shiraishi suggested we all go somewhere, like the beach, dunno yet, but it’ll be pretty cool.”

Zaizen thought about it. Kenya wasn’t going to wait.

“You’ll survive a week without your laptop! Seriously, you gonna give me a hard time convincing you or what—“

“Sure, I’ll go.”

Pause. Kenya stared at the desk in front of him in silence and Zaizen waited patiently.

“What?”

“I said I’ll go.”

“B-but you?! YOU? _The_ Zaizen, voluntarily parting with his laptop without us having to call the cops to drag his lazy ass out of his smelly room? You—“

“I’m hanging up.”

“Wait!”

Another pause. This time Kenya was biting his lip and muttering complete nonsense while Shiraishi had to hold his laughter.

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s dumb. I’ll text you the details when we’ve decided, I’ll—“

“ _Kenya-San_.”

Kenya stopped his muttering and almost dropped his phone. Damn how he missed the way he called his name.

“What is it?”

They’d only been in separate schools for less than a year, but it was enough to make Kenya forget at times of how close they actually were; that it was no challenge at all for Zaizen to detect the changes in his voice and that something was awry. Then again, Kenya wasn’t exactly subtle about his emotions, and it didn’t require a sixth sense to see that.

“Zaizen.”

“What?”

“Who’s _Star_?”

Total silence. Kenya couldn’t hear Zaizen go so much as to breath. The sound of the crowd chattering in the background seemed to fade and he couldn’t care less if Shiraishi was grinning from ear to ear.

“…Are you an idiot?”

He couldn’t have picked a worse timing to be this insensitive!

“Zaizen, I’m serious!” Kenya could feel his heart beating faster and his ears growing hot. He knew he was starting to fume over complete nonsense and yet the words just spilled out. “I need to hear it from you!”

“Just text me those details, okay?”

“I swear if you hang up on me—“

And he hung up. Of course he did.

Shiraishi walked over and gave Kenya a pat on the shoulder, saying things that sounded more like pitying than friendly advice.

At least he offered to buy them ice cream.

\--

Five servings of ice cream and a hole in Shiraishi’s wallet (serves him right!) later, Kenya felt a lot calmer. Shiraishi was now babbling about how it was unhealthy to shove such quantity of freezing cold dessert into your mouth on such a hot day but thankfully Kenya had learned enough to tune him out. He had forgotten about his little tantrum over Zaizen when his phone rang that familiar jingle.

He glanced at the screen of his phone that teasingly displayed Zaizen’s online pseudonym, and it was making him start feeling jittery again and his hand itching to read what that brat had to say _this time_.

He didn’t notice when Shiraishi stopped his useless lecture about healthy diet, and when he started staring intently at him.

“Seriously Kenya, it won’t kill you to read it.”

“I have self-control!”

Shiraishi raised an eyebrow, watching Kenya mercilessly punching his pin code onto the phone and pulling up Zaizen’s blog page- all under three seconds.

“Self-control indeed.”

He was about to continue his walk home when he noticed Kenya hadn’t moved an inch from where he stood, eyes obediently glued to his phone. Shiraishi made a few steps back and nudged him in the arm.

“What? What did he post?”

Kenya didn’t answer, but his eyes were wide as if he just saw a ghost, his knuckles shaking and his face and ears were a funny shade of red. Shiraishi leaned in closer to take a peek of the screen.

 

‘ _Star_ called to ask if I wanted to spend summer with them. They’re still an idiot.’

 

\--


	3. Patching Each Other Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> U-17 loser mountain shenanigan. Kenya got some pretty bad scars.

It was another day up at the loser’s mountain; that is, if one could call running on logs that were rolling down a river and playing tennis while hanging upside down from forest trees like some kind of athletic chimpanzees ‘another day.’ Given what they did, it was common, if not expected, for them to return at night when the moon was high to the cave that they had no choice but refer to as their temporary home covered in wounds and injuries- and if one could be honest, they’d be lucky enough not to end up with a heavy concussion or broken ribs- the mountain really lived up to its ‘depths of hell’ alias, after all.

As stingy as he was with camping gears and water and food and basically everything one would need to stay alive, Coach Nyuudo proved to be not any more generous when it came to medical supplies. With more than two dozen exhausted and heavily bruised young men in need for supplies every single night, it wasn’t uncommon that they ended up fighting for whatever they could get their hands on. More often than not, it ended with even heavier bruised young men and not a single one of them treated- giving them the idea that some regulation and punctuality were in order if they even wished to make it out of there in one piece.

Getting everyone to sit in one place for some civilized democracy was surprisingly easy (actually, all they needed was some tough love and _motivation_ from Rikkai’s one and only vice-captain). The difficult part, however, was to actually do something about their black eyes and bleeding knees with stock enough for roughly a third of them- because god help these boys whose knowledge about injury treatment never went anywhere beyond ‘roll a bandage over it and slap it good!’

And so they had to compromise for solidarity, and teamwork that involved sloppily patching up other people and each other. While it still resulted in awkwardly positioned bandages and an overwhelming use of the red medicine, a sluggish yet steady progress did come out of it. Or so they thought- hoped.

“Stop pouting, it’s not gonna work on me.”

Kenya sighed as he tightened the bandage wrapping over his teammate’s upper arm. Hitouji had taken a particularly rough landing that day. Dealing with the eagles was always his least favorite part of their harsh training regime. But then again, neither he nor Koharu were exactly the craftiest when it came down to running away from the carnivorous birds (ironic really, with Koharu being Shitenhoji’s brain power and what not). One, you should _not_ lie down on the ground and pretend dead, eagles didn’t buy that crap. Two, you should _not_ attempt to fool an eagle with a pop quiz, they didn’t even speak human. Three, you clearly should _not_ try to stale for time by starting some kind of a human equivalent to a mating ritual in the middle of the forest. Seriously, who’d do that?

“Koharu can do my bandages!” Hitouji pouted even more against Kenya’s (not so) humble request. “I’m not so up to have you touch my arm so lovingly like that!”

“You guys’ been monopolizing the damn gauze AND you took ages just to disinfect!”

“Kenya’s so mean,” Koharu followed, voice exaggerated as if he was offended. “I was just making sure I wasn’t hurting my Yuu-Kun.”

Hitouji mustered a sob and opened his arms wide.

“Koharu!!”

“Yu—OUCH!”

Kenya watched as Koharu roll over on the rocky surface of the cave ground, with both his hands holding his head and ass stuck up unnaturally high up the air—was that even necessary?!

As he sighed and let Hitouji off his grip so he could offer comfort to his now dramatically weeping other half, he saw his other teammate, standing behind the cradling duo with tiny pebbles in hand, and face that didn’t try to hide that he was the culprit guilty for Koharu’s precious, precious tears.

“You’re taking too long, senpai.”

“Hikaruuuuuuu!” Koharu wailed, “Is this the way you treat your loving paren—OUCH!!”

Another pebble hit the bespectacled genius right in the forehead, making the wailing grow louder and more unbearable as Hitouji tried all the creative ways he had up his sleeves to remedy that.

Kenya could just give them a tired sigh as Zaizen sat down in front of him- not taking any moment before shoving his right arm at Kenya’s direction.

“What, you want me to kiss it better or something?” Kenya laughed lightheartedly, but wasted no time to grab the supplies.

“I sprained it,” Zaizen answered.

“I know,” Kenya replied, eyes carefully examining his underclassman’s wrist as he held it up with something akin to gentleness, something that could be considered rare coming from someone who was usually so brisk and hasty. “I was with you the whole day.”

Zaizen made no response, much less a snarky comment that would’ve usually decorated the air between them by then. He stared as Kenya unrolled the gauze, narrowed his eyes as the older boy treated him with caution.

“Do something about your face,” he said, with a tone that sounded less like a scorn and more like concern.

“What about it?” Kenya asked almost automatically, before uttering a tiny apology as Zaizen winced when he fastened the bind right below his palm.

“The scars.” Zaizen commented back, frowning involuntarily as a mild wave of pain started hitting him again. “Honestly, they’re kind of horrifying.”

Kenya paused his work and gave him a look. He’d be lying if he said he no longer felt the throbbing burn that came from the left side of his face. As much as he’d like to pride himself in the fact that he’d never done anything so outrageous like trying to fool an eagle by giving it a pop quiz, he couldn’t say he was an expert fowl tamer either. If he could be frank with himself, all he ever did against the flying beasts was relying on his speed and outrun the unwelcome attention. It worked most of the time, so he didn’t see any reason for anyone to call him out for his methods. But today wasn’t most of the time- most of the time he didn’t have Zaizen within arm’s reach, and most of the time there weren’t two eagles that looked like they’d gain pleasure like nothing else from gauging Zaizen’s eyeballs out of his head. So Kenya did the first thing he could think of; which happened to align with the stupidest thing he could think of.

“I mean sure, just hit the eagles. Punch them straight in the face. That’ll teach them.”

The return of the sarcasm in Zaizen’s voice made him sound finally like himself again, but it also earned a scowl from Kenya.

“It’s called reflex, okay?” Kenya sighed, almost disinterested to defend his action. “Look at the bright side. You still got two eyes.”

“Did you even do anything about those?”

“They’re not bleeding anymore, it’s fine.”

“You look like half your face’s gonna fall off.”

“Look, Zaizen—“

Zaizen had no intention to let Kenya argue him. Instead, he lurched himself forward and grabbed his senior by his chin using his good hand; with firmness that was just enough and gaze being in the border of aggressiveness that left Kenya failing to remember what he was going to say.

Kenya could hear the immediate whispering and murmuring around him- it wasn’t too hard when everything echoed off the cavern walls- and the overly enthusiastic ‘Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!’ coming from Hitouji and Koharu from one corner definitely didn’t escape him. But it was extremely challenging to pay attention to any of those when Zaizen’s face was right in front of him and he found himself unable to go as far as to look at anything that wasn’t the color of the other’s eyes, wondering if he’d ever thought whether they were more a lush field of grass or a foliating malachite.

Zaizen clearly wasn’t in for a poem about his eyes though, as he yanked the first-aid box from Kenya’s hands before the latter could start protesting, and tugged his chin with barely ample force so that the scarred side of Kenya’s face was facing him.

“Seriously.” Zaizen growled, yet it wasn’t close to anger or annoyance that lied below what sounded to be a complain. “Horrifying.”

“S-sorryyyyy…..”   
“Hush.” He pressed a thumb against Kenya’s lips, and Kenya could no longer tell if the smoldering tingle he felt across his face was still because of the scars.

“Quit making faces and stay still while I clean these up.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

He could deal with the teases and the kissy sounds he was still hearing later, along with the fact that no one would let this go and that he’d be everyone’s favorite source of scandal for at least the next three days. For now, he’d focus on one thing and one thing only, because everything was worth that while.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Kenya trying to punch an eagle to protect Zaizen is canon, I didn't make the rules. ](http://66.media.tumblr.com/a69dac0a6ede73fd958d894e5bb8a8c7/tumblr_nkyef7Fyxp1r76r68o1_1280.jpg)


	4. Hospital Visits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Future AU. Kenya forgets his lunch at home and Zaizen has to bring it to the hospital where Kenya works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I also did a [little comic](http://stepsteponetwo.tumblr.com/post/129838365836) last year that played with a similar idea :D

Throughout the years, there were a number of habits that Kenya had eventually grown out of, but being fast was definitely not one of them. Before though, him being fast meant running into lamp poles on the street and stepping into a bucket of dirty water on the hallways; all fun and games. Now however, it often led to a more- not serious but more to annoying- aftermaths, like taking out food from the microwave an entire minute too early and cluttering things all over the place. Zaizen, being his roommate slash partner and what not, regularly ended up being the victim of this carelessness.

Today wasn’t an exception, it seemed, as Zaizen woke up to the sight of Kenya’s packed lunch and phone lying forgotten on the kitchen counter.

He remembered Kenya mentioning having to leave for the hospital early the previous night, something about covering his co-worker’s morning shift, and thus he had to prepare his lunch before going to bed. Zaizen could understand being in such hurry that he’d forget about his lunchbox, but his phone? Who even left home without checking their phone?

Sighing, he turned on his heel and made his way to the bathroom to gift himself a quick shower, cursing a low mouthful. Sometimes he wondered if Kenya had any idea how lucky he was that Zaizen had much more flexible working hours.

\--

He arrived at the hospital an hour later, with Kenya’s lunch safely tucked in his arms. He habitually fished out his own phone and almost dialed the other male’s number, before remembering that Kenya’s phone was currently sitting idly inside his jacket pocket. Rolling his eyes and trying not to frown, he walked over to the reception desk.

“Oh if it isn’t Zaizen-San!” The receptionist, a fresh university graduate with too much chipper in her voice, greeted him with a heartful smile. After so many of his unannounced visits to the hospital (seriously, Kenya just couldn’t be bothered to check his own belongings!), she’d gotten so used to Zaizen’s indifferent attitude that Zaizen _almost_ felt guilty for it sometimes- not that he’d ever do anything about it though. “Oshitari-San forgot something again?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged nonchalantly. “His lunch and his phone. Think you can give them to him?”

“It’ll be much faster if you give them to him yourself.” She replied, countering Zaizen’s furrowing eyebrows with a sly grin on her face. “He should be in the 5th floor right now.”

“Thanks for nothing.” He blurted, not bothering to filter his words. She didn’t mind, though.

“Happy to help!”

\--

He wasn’t surprised at all that Kenya would be there. The fifth floor was the children’s ward; the only floor where the hallways were painted funky colors and birds and butterflies made out of craft papers were hanging from the ceiling. Every door to a patient’s room had the patient’s name written on bright colored boards with crayons and it had little stickers of popular cartoon characters- in other words, a place where Kenya would totally belong, and one where Zaizen looked extremely out of place.

He passed by the nurses’ station, from which the nurses just gave him polite smiles and nodded, as familiar they were with him being there despite him being unable to tell their names apart. He easily walked past a couple of children’s rooms before he made a turn, knowing where exactly Kenya was as if he was psychic.

Zaizen wasn’t one to be sentimental and he surely wouldn’t describe too many scenarios to be ‘blissful,’ but there was something that was dangerously close to it, that he could feel gushing out of his heart that made him feel warm and weird, whenever he saw Kenya with children. Zaizen wouldn’t say he was particularly good with children, what not with the only experience he had of handling one was when he had to babysit his cousin’s toddler back when he was still in middle school. But Kenya was the opposite of him; he was so good, so patient, and so well-loved by children who weren’t even related to him that Zaizen was sure it was some kind of black magic. One shouldn’t be that natural among tiny crying, pooping monsters, it just wasn’t possible!

But there he was, laughing without a care of the world, one kid in his arm and another sitting on his shoulders, another two clinging to his legs demanding his attention and god knows how many more there were behind him that were laughing and singing along to whatever children TV show’s theme song Kenya was singing, out of tune, on top of that.

Preferably, Zaizen would spend the whole day watching Kenya act adorable with tiny humans, because it made for a better show than dumb low definition movies on the internet accompanied with stale popcorn, but of course, he was at the children’s ward, full of children, and children weren’t known to leave you alone with your inner peace.

“Who are you, mister?”

He glanced down at his feet, having his momentary tranquility smashed to pieces. One of the children was standing in front of him, staring directly up at him with eyes so doe-like it almost sent the creeps up Zaizen’s spine.

While he wasn’t going to indulge the child with a pointless conversation anyway, a much more familiar voice interrupted- an interruption that he so openly welcomed.

“Hikaru!” Kenya, pulling a goofy smile and putting the children down, waved his hand as he made little skips to approach his partner. Zaizen couldn’t help but notice how the kids almost immediately jerked their heads to look at them- which wasn’t _creepy_ at all.  

“What are you doing here?” Kenya stood in front of him, patting the little kid who’d asked who Zaizen was earlier.

“You left your lunch at home,” Zaizen sighed and shoved the neatly packed box at Kenya, trying his best to ignore the strange stares coming from the children. “And your phone.”

“What, really?! Dang, I didn’t even notice! Thanks!”

“If you really mean it you’d start remembering to take your things with you.”

“Ah well, I was in a rush.” Kenya tried to laugh it off, something he always did when he knew he was out of excuses. Usually it would earn him a nudge in the stomach or a flick in the forehead, but this time Zaizen was preoccupied with something else.

“Kenya,” the kid next to them tugged on Kenya’s coat, to whom the latter responded with another carefree smile.

“What’s up, Kouta?”

“Is this Hikaru?”

It was obvious that Kenya didn’t see the question coming, just by the arching of his eyebrows and the nearly audible pause in his throat. Then again, Zaizen didn’t quite appreciate being pointed at by some random brat, either.

“Well, um—yeah, this is Hikaru.” Zaizen threw accusing glares at him. Kenya skittishly swatted them away. “How did you know?”

Before little Kouta could grant an answer, a couple more kids ran to his side, all looking up at both Kenya and Zaizen with similar doe eyes that even Kenya was starting to feel a little creeped out.

“Uh, guys? What’s the look for?”

“Did you really save Kenya from a speeding truck?”

Zaizen raised an eyebrow. From the corner of his eyes he could see Kenya turning a shade paler.

“No, no!” Another kid, a little girl this time, shoved Kouta and the other boy away to ensure she was getting Zaizen’s full attention, while Zaizen was nothing but weirded out, if he could be honest. “Tell us about the time you sang a song to help Kenya sleep!”

He’d never sung Kenya to sleep. If there was anything that was even remotely close, it was the one time he offered to marathon a very bad sitcom on Netflix because Kenya was growing too uneasy going to hysterical the night before an exam back when he was still in med school.

He shot another glare at Kenya, who was completely averting his gaze from him while cold sweat was starting to bead on the back of his neck.

“Rinko, you’re not being fair!” Another girl, shorter than the first one with hair cut in a bob style, emerged from the group of staring children and proceeded to stare up at Zaizen with way too much enthusiasm. “Can I please hear about your romantic first kiss on the cruise ship?”

_Their first kiss was a dare from Koharu and Hitouji back in middle school. Holy shit._

Kenya was now frantically flailing his arms and screamed things analogous to ‘that’s not how it weenttt!’, blood hastily rushing into his face as it  turned into an embarrassing hue of crimson. Meanwhile the kids, bless their innocent souls, gave him a clueless, questioning looks that were asking for answers instead of a demonstration of how many directions Kenya could thrash his arms at.

Zaizen couldn’t even begin to guess what kind of feeble-minded stories Kenya had been feeding these poor kids, but he certainly could see the humor in it- and he definitely never minded a chance to fluster his now already dumbfounded and very, very fazed partner.

“Sadly, I can’t tell you about the cruise ship.”

The kids’ attention was now back to Zaizen, and Kenya knew him way too well to see that it was undeniably _not_ the younger’s attempt to set the situation right.

“But, I can show you something cooler.”

Zaizen was grinning- dear God Zaizen was _grinning_ and a grinning Zaizen never meant anything good.

“Hikaru,” he leaned in and mustered a frustrated- almost weak whisper against his ear. “I swear if you’re up to something freaky—“

He didn’t even need to finish his to-be threat as Zaizen grabbed his collar and smashed their lips against each other’s. A loud, messy but well-nigh harmonious screaming erupted following it, roughly divided evenly into a higher-pitched chunk that sounded closer to an ‘Aww!’, and another that did like an ‘Eww!’

Startled by the uproar, the nurses shuffled and fumbled into the corridor, faces decked with alarm that something was going terribly wrong.

But Zaizen had long pulled away and now had both his hands in his pockets, while Kenya was slouching his head against the wall opposite him, with a hand covering his mouth and face that was an even funkier color than it was before.

“Dr. Oshitari—“ One of the nurses enquired, a clear hint of concern in her voice. “Is something the matter?”

“He’s just feeling a little drowsy,” Zaizen hummed, and Kenya didn’t even have to look at him to know he had the cockiest smirk on his face. “I have to go. See you tonight, Kenya.”

The nurses sent him off all with a muddled look, and rushed to send the children back to their rooms as they started saying things like “Kenya, are you okay?”, “Did you get cooties?!”, “Maybe you gotta get yourself checked!”

It only made Zaizen’s smirk grow bigger.

\--


	5. Scar Worship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zaizen is confident, mischievous, and borderline rude, but there were unspoken times when he wasn't like that.   
> (TW for implied self-harm)

Zaizen wasn’t particularly fond of getting reminded of the bad days, but it was especially hard not to think of them when their reminders were right there, crawling all across his wrist, darkened plot of skin below his palm. Unnatural. Chapped. _Disgusting_.  

They weren’t exactly difficult to hide as smart people didn’t ask nor comment about what he was wearing or what he was doing, and smart people definitely would keep their hands to themselves when it came to him.

But Kenya was different, because Kenya had seen, had touched those exact plots of skin when they were red, when they were rugged and coarse and when they were _gross_. And he’d felt bad for them, cried for them, for _him_ , and had graced them with the feel of his lips as soon as they were dry- safe enough for him to do so.

Zaizen had cried, because he saw no more point of pretending he didn’t want to cry, and Kenya had sat right next to him, within a distance that wasn’t invasive, but within reach that Zaizen knew he was there.

He’d hold his hand when he reached out, gripped on it, clung to it, and he’d hugged him when he leaned close, kissed his head when he buried his face deep into the crook of his neck. Zaizen didn’t know what to say, and Kenya didn’t ask, and the very next words that came out from his mouth only hours later were of him asking if he wanted to do something fun; something different, something _away_ from all that. And so they plopped in front of the TV, old movies that were too dry for their tastes quietly playing, the only source of light in the dark, dark room.

But it helped Zaizen sleep that night, and that was all what Kenya wanted.

\--

Kenya pulled his hand close, placing it against his own dampened cheek and peppered the other’s wrist with small, slow kisses, as they lied side by side, bare of clothes and frankly, bare of shame.

Zaizen raised an eyebrow and looked at him weird, a tiny hiss escaped his lips when he made his remark.

“Out of all places you could kiss.”  

Kenya reached out an arm and tugged the rest of Zaizen’s body closer, fingers still entwining with the younger man’s and lips still asserting against the now, barely visible remains of his scars.

“Do they still hurt?”

Zaizen let out a small sigh. “You know they don’t. It’s been years.”

He met Kenya’s eyes, and the gaze that was thickly clouded with love and desire a few moments ago was then sparking an apparent hint of sorrow.

“Do you still hurt?”

Zaizen watched him in a momentary silence. It wasn’t the first time Kenya had asked him the very same question- he had done so many times throughout the years, and he found it almost funny that Kenya cared so much- so much more than he himself ever did, as if the other was terrified that he would lose him -as he almost did before- if he stopped asking, if he stopped holding onto him, as if Zaizen was worth any of that.

He found it funnier though, that he couldn’t help but starting to believe that, started to stop arguing when Kenya pampered him with almost-lame one liners and even lamer ‘ _I love you_ ’s, starting to believe, to _know_ , that he had all the right in the world to say the words back at him.

And then he’d find himself smiling- thin, a little bit groggy, he was still working on it- and held the other man in place and gave him a kiss gentle on the lips, confident, demanding some other day.

“No.” The corner of his lips was threatening to tug further. “I don’t. I’m fine.”

Kenya smiled, relieved and satisfied, and within seconds he was back to the task at hand; continuing to shower the younger’s scars with tender affection.

Zaizen stopped himself from making any more snarky comments. Instead he let Kenya do what he wanted, sighing. Pleased. _Content_. Besides, he could always tell Kenya to kiss him on more _proper_ places later.

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had to write a few versions of this before I settled with this one. It's a sensitive topic and it's very much a close and personal one to me, so it was really easy to get lost in the flow and wind up with obsessive details. It ended up being half as long as the other chapters, but I wanted this to feel light and I think I got the point across even without giving out too much? I sure hope so!


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